Tuesday, February 26, 2013

This report by PRI from a couple of months ago is very surprising to me. The last time I checked (which was about ten years ago) there were only 3 medical schools in Ethiopia: Addis Ababa (Black Lion), Gondar and Jimma. Now there are 13! Ethiopia was producing about 300 doctors in 2005 and that number is slated to rise to 8000 by 2015. This is a 2567% increase! It is good that the government is trying to expand healthcare training, but this level of expansion will only come at a huge cost to quality of training as the report alludes. I guess the golden days of Ethiopian medical education is history.

Monday, February 11, 2013

EECMY Terminates her Partnership Relations with ELCA and CoS

The 19th General Assembly of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, held from January 27 to February 2, 2013, passed several important resolutions related to the life and ministry of the Church including election of leaders, formation of a Judiciary Commission, establishment of new synods and above all, fellowshipping in prayer and worship. Among the agenda items that received endorsement of the General Assembly were issues related to marriage and human sexuality – topics that extensively called the attention of the Church’s policy-making bodies at different levels, over the past several years.It is recalled, earlier in 2006, two of the major partners of the EECMY, namely the Church of Sweden and later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, passed decisions that favor Homosexual practices and blessing of same sex marriage. The EECMY noted this as a surprise and immediately reacted against and earnestly requested for reconsideration of their decisions. To the contrary, these two Churches, going further, resolved to legalize same sex marriage and calling of gay persons into ordained ministry. As a result of this, the EECMY was compelled to engage with an intentional theological reflection and deeper search of Scripture as well as legal and cultural perspectives of the Ethiopian Context. The outcome of this study was critically reviewed and taken as the basis for the decisions of the 6th Church Council — which resulted in the writing of Pastoral Call to the two Churches to reverse their decisions, lest the EECMY would be forced to terminate her relationship, with prior notification of one year as per the Standard Partnership Agreement. Sadly, the repeated endeavors of the EECMY on this line, failed to obtain the expected positive response from the two Churches.Subsequently, the Council of the Church at its 8th regular session held in July 2012, was obligated to implement the decision of the 6th Council, i.e. termination of the partnership relations and setting of exit strategy to realize the decision. Having heard and thoroughly reviewed the report presented on the actions so far taken on this Issue, the 19th General Assembly of the Church unanimously endorsed the Resolution passed by the 8th Council.Being cognizant of the fruitful and long-standing relationships with the ELCA and the CoS, the EECMY expresses her very deep and sincere appreciation of their historic contributions in God’s Mission.We will continue to pray that, one day, the relationships will be restored.The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY)February 11, 2013Addis Ababa